Saddam passing into history: Bush

US President George W Bush says Saddam Hussein's regime is "passing into history," though coalition forces may still face fierce combat.

"The conflict continues in Iraq, and our military may still face hard fighting. Yet the statues of the dictator and all the works of his terror regime are falling away," the president said in his weekly radio address on Saturday.

The remarks capped a week in which US troops seized Saddam's capital, raided his palaces and -- providing an image that symbolised the collapse of his regime -- helped jubilant Iraqis rip a statue of their toppled leader from its pedestal.

"Over the last several days, the world has watched as the regime of Saddam Hussein began passing into history," Bush said. "We will always remember the first images of a nation released from decades of tyranny and fear."

Bush taped the address on Friday before visiting wounded US troops and later flying to the Camp David presidential retreat for the weekend.

On a tearful tour of the two Washington-area military hospitals, Bush met 75 injured troops, handed out 10 Purple Hearts and watched two servicemen -- one from Mexico, the other from the Philippines -- be sworn in as US citizens.

Citizenship for one of them, Lance Cpl. OJ Santa Maria, was expedited as a result of an executive order Bush signed last year that allowed faster naturalisation for anyone involved in military hostilities.

Suffering visibly from a shoulder wound received in Nasariyah and hooked up to a blood transfusion, Santa Maria managed to stand -- over protests -- for the ceremony. Halfway through, he broke down sobbing from the pain and the occasion.

White House officials said there was no guarantee that Bush would ever formally declare the war over, and he certainly won't do so any time soon, in part because a premature declaration would open him to criticism if more casualties follow.

Instead, aides said Bush could bask in a series of victories -- the first meeting of potential leaders of a new Iraq, expected to be held in the next 10 days, flow of humanitarian goods, the formation of an interim authority to govern Iraq, and the election of a new government.